Hi everybody Cheryl Ackison here with another edition of the Cheryl Ackison

Podcast.

The long-awaited report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz about the alleged

FISA abuse or surveillance abuse is soon to be released. I thought I would offer a brief

pre-analysis before the report is made public. First I think there are five key things for you to remember as you hear and read the

news stories and the analyses about the findings. First of all, most news reporters and analysts who comment on the Horowitz report will not have read it.

They will rely on other news reports, other news reporters, what they're saying, and or spin provided by partisans and others with vested interests.

This is important to keep in mind as you hear them speak with authority or supposed authority about what's in the report.

Number two, most news reporters and analysts who do read any part of the report

will only have reviewed the summary and or the conclusion, something you can do yourself if you find a copy

and I'll try to post it on my website at Cheryl Ackison.com as soon as I can get a copy of it to post. Some of those who read those sections, the summary and or

conclusion may also read partial sections pointed out to them by partisans and others with

vested interests to prove their particular points.

Again, keep this in mind when you hear people giving their analyses.

Number three, the report will likely offer plenty of criticism, but if the past is any guide, it will

often accept the most innocent explanation for any inappropriate act barring an explicit admission of the contrary.

In other words, in the past, if an official has been found to have done something wrong or

improper or suspicious, but he simply tells the Inspector General he accidentally destroyed the documents

that would prove something or that he doesn't recall something.

It is often that which is accepted as the explanation that, well, there's nothing

to prove otherwise, so we have to believe that intentions were pure or that anything that

happened that was wrong was accidental and not nefarious.

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